Abstract
Van Wyk Louw’s poetry is characterised by relativisation in the conventional sense of qualifying the referent as relative rather than absolute. This implies that a person or other entity is compared to an implicit norm or standard, but one that is not fully met. The use of the adjective klein (“small”) serves as an example. Klein can, for instance, describe its referent as not meeting the norm of average size or extent in its particular class. This paper strives not only to identify types and instances of relativisation in Louw’s poetry but, in some cases, also to offer suggestions as to what his poetic intentions are. Three types of language-based relativisation are identified in Louw’s poetic oeuvre. The use of lexical items such as klein may be described as lexical relativisation. The word klein...